Sunday, 16 December 2012

On The Fifth Day Of Christmas, The Progressives Gave To Me...

In 1947 Congress acted to rein in “Big Labor” by passing (over President Truman’s veto) what came to be known as the Taft-Hartley Act. Among its provisions was a section permitting states to outlaw union shop agreements between workers and management– what some anti-union PR genius labeled “right to work” laws.

These laws bar unions and employers from requiring all employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement to either join the union or pay the equivalent of dues to the union. However unions almost always represent employees who refuse to join or make payments. So these employees receive all the benefits of being union members– the wage and benefit increases negotiated by the union, the right to union representation in grievance and arbitration cases– without paying a dime of the costs. Which is why some of us call these people freeloaders.

Yes indeed, as far as Gene at 'Harry's Place' is concerned, those people who don't want to kick back part of their salary to a cabal they don't want to join are the freeloaders...

I once saw the negative effect of the closed shop when I worked in the newspaper industry. Demarcation rules were so extreme that a photographer who owned a 'wire machine' (for the younger readers this was a device for scanning and transmitting photographs over the telephone line). This photographer lived in terror that the SOGAT and NGA union members would hear of his possessino of such a machine (as an NUJ member he was strictly forbidden by demarcation agreement from using a wire machine (only NGA or SOGAT workers could use a wire machine).

I also in the same industry saw how closed shops made it difficult to get into the print game for new entrants. I remember accompanying a friend who wanted to start work in the newspaper production industry,as he trotted round from NGA local office to NGA local office to see if, as the son of an NGA member he would be taken on by the union. Back then if you were not a member of a union that had an agreement with the management then you could not be hired. This gave shop stewards an incredible amount of power in hiring and firing for various print businesses.

The closed shop, as I experienced it, held the newspaper industry back. British newspapers hung on to the 'hot metal linotype processs' far longer than other countries newspaper producers, almost exclusively because to replace the hot metal process with something more modern, would have caused so many ructions with the Unions.

I would go so far as to say it was only Rupert Murdoch's move to Wapping that saved Britain's newspaper industry.

Aaaah, can I, as "a member" just point out that you really haven't lived until you have sat through an impassioned diatribe from "a fellow union member" explaining, nay demanding that as "the Union" is recognised by "the management" for all negotiating purposes connected with salaries, conditions of service etc. anyone who isn't a member and doesn't pay their dues should not have the benefit of any improvements that "the union" secures - sometimes the impassioned person throws in a potential "sop" clause under which the non union members who contribute an amount equivalent to what their dues would be to "a charidee" could perhaps be allowed to receive "the benefits the union negotiates" and I mustn't forget the occasionally chipped in "the non members should have to negotiate their own agreements", although these types are usually rendered silent by someone explaining the potential pitfalls in such an arrangement, like the "management" waking up to the fact that as their are more non members than members, going down the route of doing exactly that and effectively sidelining the union completely.

"I would go so far as to say it was only Rupert Murdoch's move to Wapping that saved Britain's newspaper industry."

And - as a result - don't the left-wing press loathe him for it?

"... although these types are usually rendered silent by someone explaining the potential pitfalls in such an arrangement, like the "management" waking up to the fact that as their are more non members than members, going down the route of doing exactly that and effectively sidelining the union completely."